Let's face it. The number one thing stopping most of us from seeing our names on the New York Times Best Sellers List is the fact that we would actually have to commit our ideas to paper.
Getting started on a story is easy, in theory.
First, there is the anticipation: that delicious feeling of what could be when the words are laid out in perfect order and the tale is told. The dreams of attending the book release, cheerily reading the book reviews and even autographing hardcover copies at Barnes and Nobles for adoring fans.
Who wouldn't want that?
So we sit before the computer, or notepad, our fingers and pens hovering in that split second as we transform from ordinary mortals to the transcendent being known as "writer."
And then, without fail, our brains kick in.
What happens if the indefinable "they" don't like it? What if our brainchild - beautiful, newly formed, spawned from our deepest desires, darkest imaginings and dearest hopes - is cast out into the streets to starve, or more accurately, pass life on the shelves of a thrift store?
Quickly, we reign our brains back in. After all, no one can not like our brainchild. We are proud parents; all we see are the gems in our works.
Our fingers twitch, ready to write again.
Then our brains start screaming, what if I fail? What if I, as your poor, inarticulate brain, can't relate the story properly? What if the readers don't see what they need to see because of me?
For a minute, our hearts stop pumping. We want to write, but the fear paralyzes us so that all we have on the blank page before us is "Chapter One" and white space.
We close the document, put the pencil aside and decide to keep that beautiful, Pulitzer Prize-worthy story in our minds where it is perfect and unblemished.
Imagine the literary world if Shakespeare had never conquered writer's block. If Chaucer had decided nobody would ever want to hear stories about the common man. If Jules Verne had been too afraid of critics to reveal his dreams about the future of the world to the masses.
I am not saying that every writer out there is a Poe, Austen or Hemingway (Thank God), but that doesn't mean our writing is any less wonderful, in its own way.
So, write those first few words. Close your eyes and write blind, scrawl across the page lines of overlapping nonsense and get the jitters out.
Now, open your eyes, turn the page and write the beginning. Or the middle. Or the climax. Who cares.
Write something.
Give your brainchild a chance to live a little in the real world, and you just might surprise yourself.
